New Heirlooms in 5.2?

27Dec

The PTR has once again revealed the possibility of new heirlooms. For the last couple of years there have been heirloom rings that were datamined out of the PTR, but we still haven’t seen them in-game. The legs showed up at the same time as the rings, and we have had those for a while now but who knows whether these new items will really be available or not, and if so then when?

When and if these new heirlooms do become available, I will update my existing guide, or write a new one to make sure that all of your heirloom needs are covered from which ones you need or want for which class, to which enchants you’ll want to put on them as well. Until they are confirmed to be in the actual patch, I’ll just stick with this guide to give you an idea of what’s there.

This post will show you all of the new heirlooms that were found in the 5.2 patch, and compare them to their existing items so that you can see how they compare and whether or not they might be on your list of things to do once they go live.

[Update: I found a blue post yesterday that confirms that these new upgraded heirlooms will in fact be in the 5.2 patch, as well as the new shields and off-hand item. The price for the upgraded versions of the heirlooms is the same as the current version of the heirloom plus you have to turn in that old heirloom. So, if you want a level 85 heirloom, they basically cost twice as much as the original because you have to turn in a copy of the original in order to get it.]

The Cost of New HeirloomsWe don’t have any idea right now what these will cost. The assumption is that they will cost Justice Points as the current heirlooms do, but we don’t know what the prices will be, whether they’ll be the same as the existing heirlooms, more expensive, or if they’ll get the current price and the old ones will get cheaper. We don’t know if the current heirlooms will no longer be offered, or if you’ll be able to trade them in for a discount on the new ones. There’s plenty of speculation out there, but so far I haven’t found anything to confirm, well…anything.

How much do these new heirlooms cost? We don’t know.
Will they cost gold, honor, justice points, or something else? We don’t know any of that, either.
Will we be able to trade in current ones for new ones? I doubt it.
Will the old ones magically turn into the new ones? I doubt that, too.

[Update: We do know the cost of these heirlooms now. The three brand new heirlooms are two shields (one tank, one caster) and an off-hand item, and each of those costs 2,175 Justice Points. The upgraded versions of the heirlooms which will scale to level 85 instead of level 80, require you to turn in the original heirloom and then also pay a number of Justice Points equal to the original cost of the item. So far their PvP heirlooms have not been confirmed, though they have been data mined. So we don’t know for sure if you will be able to upgrade those or not. We also do not have any word on whether or not you will be able to get the upgraded versions through the Argent Tournament or the Darkmoon Fair.

My suspicion is that those will continue to provide ways to get the base heirloom, but that they will leave the upgrades as a way for people to dump their Justice Points. I could see the Darkmoon Fair maybe getting the upgrades, but I don’t think the Tournament will since it’s part of the level 80 world where the new DMF is a part of the level 85 world.

[Update: Confirmed that you can use the Darkmoon Faire to upgrade your heirlooms, the follow the same pattern of requiring you to turn in your old version plus pay the full cost of the original again. Also found that you cannot buy the new off-hand item via the Faire at this time, though it is available for Justice Points. The shields however, apparently never made the cut and are completely unavailable.]

Comparing New vs. Old
I was going to try to do a side-by-side comparison of the heirlooms to show you how the 5.2 heirlooms stood up to the current ones, but Wowhead apparently only has stats for the maximum level of the new heirlooms, which is 85. That makes doing a direct comparison impossible since the current versions only go up to level 80 and I can’t see what the level 80 stats are for the 5.2 version. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make an educated guess, right?

The best way I could see to compare these was to take an existing heirloom that’s good until level 85 and compare its own stats at level 80 to itself to see what kind of percentage it comes out to. Since stats are added to items in different proportions based on the item slot in question, I decided to check multiple items as well.

The stats for the cloak range from 25.25% to 25.50% when you check what percentage the level 80 version is compared to the level 85. For the helm, stats range from 25.44% to 25.69%, and for the legs the range is 25.28% to 25.69%. If you average all of the stats for all three items, then you come up with 25.45%.

If you do the same calculation on the two different bows, you’ll see that the stats are each 25.47%. So the new items seem to follow more or less the same scaling format that the current items do, which means that the most likely result will be that the new heirlooms are exactly the same as the existing heirlooms with the exception that they scale up to level 85 instead of only level 80.

With that knowledge in mind, I think the most likely thing we’ll see in relation to the cost of these 5.2 heirlooms is that they will be the same cost as the existing heirlooms. And since the 5.2 version will cause all of the current ones to become redundant, I expect that they’ll make the level 80 versions simply no longer available for purchase.[Update: We now have confirmation on the costs. Upgraded heirlooms will require you to turn in the original heirloom, plus they will cost you the same amount of Justice Points as the original. So basically, these upgraded versions of the heirlooms cost twice as much as the original, and you lose the original if you upgrade it. As the items are completely separate, you will need to re-enchant them.]

I would love to see them add a way for us to upgrade our current heirlooms into these new versions, but Blizzard is all about making you play the game to get things in the game, so I’m leaning towards a whole new grind starting all over again. Since there’s only 5 levels worth of difference, I think that’s going to be their justification for making you pay the full price on the new ones. I would love to see reduced costs or other methods of obtaining heirlooms, but I think Blizzard feels pretty good with where they’re at right now and probably won’t bother changing it.

Some of the posts that I’ve seen people discussing these on, and even some of the comments on Wowhead suggest that they’ve finally given us a set of armor for plate-wearing casters (Holy Paladins), but that’s not the case. They do have an upgraded version of the plate shoulders that already exist in the game, but there is no chest, helm, or legs to go along with them. So if you want to level a Holy Paladin, you’ll still be rocking those mail heirlooms on into 5.2 and beyond for the foreseeable future.

Completely New Heirlooms
There are also a few brand new heirlooms that were found in 5.2’s data that do not currently have a related item in-game.

[Update: The only item from this list that made it into the game in 5.2 is the Musty Tome of the Lost. The shields did not make it in, nor did the PvP trinket.]

The first two items are shields, but the PTR database on Wowhead doesn’t list any stats on them at all. If you look at the original items that these are based on, which all heirlooms are, the Observer’s Shield was for casters (spirit and intellect) and the Draconian Deflector was for tanks (dodge). The Musty Tome of the Lost is a caster off-hand that gives Stamina, Intellect, and Haste.

The fourth item is a PvP trinket, but not the kind that breaks crowd control effects. Instead, it increases your maximum health for a time. This will allow you to pair it up with the current PvP heirloom trinkets, or the more improved 5.2 versions so that you can have both trinkets providing you with a boost to your PvP stats. [Side Note: Even the 5.2 version of the PvP trinkets that break CC effects still have a 5 minute cooldown.] [Update: None of the Honor heirlooms have been confirmed yet on the 5.2 PTR. So the two shields and the off-hand have been confirmed, but the PvP trinket has not.]

Another Look at Rings
We first found out about these rings when information was datamined from the 4.3 patch and we started learning more about the Darkmoon Faire. We still haven’t seen them introduced to the game yet, but that’s the same time we also found out about the heirloom legs that were only recently introduced.

The first ring will be for Strength DPS classes, the second for Strength Tanks (possibly all tanks), the third for DPS and Healing Casters alike, and the last one for Agility DPS classes and possibly Agility Tanks. Also, note that these rings are all unique-equip which means you can’t wear two of the same ring. So melee DPS will likely wear the main ring along with the Strength or Agility DPS rings (whichever isn’t their primary one), Tanks will use the tank ring along with either the Strength or Agility DPS ring that’s appropriate for their class, and casters will pair the Archmagus ring with either the Strength or Agility DPS ring depending on whether Hit or Haste is more important to them.

7 responses to “New Heirlooms in 5.2?”

Well, there is a way to upgrade, the problem is that’s literally the only way to get them. You must get the original and then upgrade it into the new version. Twice the total cost, for a whopping 5 extra levels worth of usefulness.

I can’t believe the cost of upgrading the heirlooms, for that price they should GO TO 90! Also, do the new Heirlooms scale at 78 to Cata-level blues like they do at 58 and 68? If they don’t, they are out-classed by Cata greens for levels 77 through 80(the heirlooms on wowhead don’t jump until 81).

I haven’t upgraded any of mine yet, because I can’t honestly say that the upgrade is worth the cost. Paying twice the amount for an extra 5 levels just doesn’t make much sense to me beyond having something to dump extra JP into. The only reason I might consider it is for chest/shoulders not for the stats but for the experience boost to get me through Cata content faster. Once I get my heirloom collection filled out on both of my servers (I split it to move onto a 2nd server) I might start dumping my JP into upgrading heirlooms just because there’s nothing better for me to do with it.

The drawback to doing something like enchanted BoP items is that they’re not reusable, so you’re getting very limited use of the enchant and the item itself. Granted, that’s no less use than you get out of your gear at max level if you’re running heroics or raiding, so it might very well be worth your time and money investment. Depends on you, your cash flow, and your server economy I suppose.

I’m in no hurry right now to upgrade any of my heirlooms. I did consider it for about an hour over the weekend weighing the pros and cons, and instead I just bought another 1-80 heirloom.

No worries. The upgrade is only really for the XP bonus, I totally agree with you. 15% more to move through Cata content is not bad. Fully rested with 45%+ should get you 3 levels in Hyjal and 2 in Uldum.

If one has gold, then hitting up some enchants on BoE gear is not a big deal. I was going more for optimally efficient, because at this point, getting to 90 is an absolute chore. No flying mounts, no XP nerf in sight and no XP heirlooms. It’s no wonder why so many people play at lower levels, especially in BGs where things are very imbalanced. I know of people refusing to level alts because 85-90 just stinks.

I already have all the leveling 1-80 heirlooms, less what was put in 5.2. I did the Crusader quests at 85 and had plenty of leftover honor to convert to justice to get what I was missing, then bought all the ones from Guild Perks. I could never get the ring as playing on weekends was a not possible.

I’m just mad they don’t go to 90 for their cost, they don’t scale at 78 like they do at 58 and 68 and that they are still based on Cata gear(ilvl 333) which is trounced by MoP gear that’s available.